It is important to address our country’s fiscal issues by promoting economic productivity in the short term while reducing the deficit over the long term as I mentioned in my last week’s Energy Experts blog post. It’s fundamental to an overall healthy economy to extend key tax credits that create American jobs and generate private investment, and the PTC is one of the important tax credit programs.

During the final sprint to Election Day, Americans will hear political leaders point fingers as they attempt to explain why the U.S. is experiencing slow domestic job growth. We will hear versions of an “all of the above” energy strategy, versions that may not in fact fairly embrace all of our domestic energy resources. Evidence of the lack of consistent support for all sources of energy abounds in Congress’s failure to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC) even as the wind industry has been making significant gains in previous years. If leaders of any party want to truly establish “all of the above” energy strategy that embraces all sources of energy--natural gas, fossil fuels, and renewable energy--on a level playing field, the PTC must be extended.

July 12 -- Georgia Power must purchase more solar power for its energy system under a plan approved Thursday by state utility regulators, a move sought by solar developers and renewable energy proponents but denounced by a commissioner who argued it could raise costs. >>View Article

June 27 -- Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers have concluded that Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania are the best U.S. sites for solar and wind power plants in terms of their ability to provide health benefits to people in the area. Wind and solar achieve greater health and climate benefits in these regions than in traditional solar powerhouses in the Southwest and California because, in those locations, they replace electricity generated by coal plants, the researchers report. >>View Article

May 6 -- Located 200 miles and two mountain passes northwest of Denver, the town of Craig was rocking and rolling in the late 1970s as two coal-fired power plants were being completed and a third was launched. Then, after the construction crews left, not so much. >>View Article

April 18 -- If the U.S. ceases to burn coal, shuts down a quarter of existing nuclear reactors, and trims its use of natural gas by 2050, the resulting increased reliance on wind, solar and other renewables will not result in a less reliable electricity grid, according to a major new report prepared by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., for the nonprofit Civil Society Institute (CSI). >>View Article

March 28 -- No fewer than two in three Americans want the U.S. to put more emphasis on producing domestic energy using solar power (76%), wind (71%), and natural gas (65%). Far fewer want to emphasize the production of oil (46%) and the use of nuclear power (37%). Least favored is coal, with about one in three Americans wanting to prioritize its domestic production. >>View Article

March 11 -- A glut of government-subsidized wind power may help accomplish a goal some environmentalists have sought for decades: kill off U.S. nuclear power plants while reducing reliance on electricity from burning coal. >>View Article

February 1 -- First Solar Inc. (FSLR), the world’s largest thin-film solar manufacturer, may receive the lowest rates ever for selling U.S. solar power, less than electricity from new coal plants, for a project it purchased in New Mexico, according to a regulatory filing. >>View Article